Dish Network, a company you typically associate with satellite based television, has 40 MHz worth of spectrum that’s currently sitting unused. They’ve asked the Federal Communications Commission if they can use said spectrum to build out an LTE-Advanced network that will cover the United States. No dates were mentioned as to when said network would go live should they be allowed to start construction, but Dish does make the assumption in their letter to the FCC that LTE-Advanced devices will be on the market by 2014. Just how fast is LTE-Advanced? Earlier this summer we saw Ericsson demo what LTE-Advanced is capable of using a 3x 20 MHz configuration, meaning they bonded 3 separate 20 MHz channels; they hit 950+ Mbps. Dish Network has plans to use a 2x 20 MHz configuration, so we’re looking at potential speeds of over 600 Mbps. SNL Kagan analyst Mariam Rondeli says Dish is going to need a lot of money to make this work, and might need to simply outsource their network rollout to someone more qualified like Nokia Siemens Networks, Ericsson, Huawei, or any of the other infrastructure provider.
Now while this proposed network will create yet another frequency that device makers have to support, we welcome this wild idea because America needs competition. After AT&T completes their acquisition of T-Mobile next Spring, 80% of Americans will have their wireless needs serviced by just 2 companies. We may not see Dish smartphones or tablets in the future, but if they can provide high speed connectivity to rural communities, as well as mobile warriors, then all the more power to them. Dish will face some competition from the other small guys, namely Clearwire and LightSquared, but the latter is having problems proving they don’t break GPS, while the former doesn’t have enough money to put toilet paper in their office bathrooms.
Can Dish save the day?